


an eternity's atonement

by milahtalas



Category: Bloodbound (Visual Novels)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:34:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26013448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/milahtalas/pseuds/milahtalas
Summary: He wishes it was love. He detests that thought. He doesn’t deserve it.
Relationships: Gaius Augustine/Main Character (Bloodbound)
Kudos: 17





	an eternity's atonement

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: redamancy (n.) — the act of loving someone who loves you; a love returned in full
> 
> originally posted [here](https://libraascendant.tumblr.com/post/624905603742089217/pairing-gaius-x-mc-of-course-b-prompt)

There are ghosts in the walls. There are ghosts in the walls, and each of them know his name. Every night they cry, they scream, they curse him. He doesn’t know all of them, but they know him. They come in different forms; in the form of a dying child, a grieving mother, a war-mongering soldier. They curse him until it’s the only thing he hears, and perhaps he deserves it.

Gaius Augustine wonders why they didn’t just cleave his head off in his old throne room, but he supposes that would have been too easy. He deserves the sentence they gave him, to make up for his mistakes and attempt to do _some_ good in the world when in reality he’s probably chasing pipe dreams of redemption. Gaius saw the look in his former lover’s eyes, ones that once looked at him with such tenderness now shot him nothing but biting cold ice. He noticed how his soldier looked at him, with all the respect gone and replaced with contempt. Then there was the glare of pure anger in the eyes of the new blood, the same one whose father figure he killed at the doorway of his home. 

Then there was her.

The one he had driven a blade up to the hilt of; her friend’s blade, nonetheless. The one he had killed. The one who let him live. He still doesn’t understand _why_. 

Gaius remembers her _choosing_ to sit next to him on the boat, _choosing_ to tell him that he’ll find something to live for, _choosing_ to hold him close and wrap him in her arms. And as he treks through the snowy forests of Europe, he wonders _why_. Surely the blood on his hands — _her blood_ — should’ve been enough reason for Amy to hate him and curse his name just as all the ghosts of his past have. 

_So why didn’t she?_

As much as he hates himself for it, he finds himself entertaining the notion that perhaps, she had done it out of... _love?_

_Love? For you? The man who killed her, who hurt her and everyone she’s cared for? You think it’s love?_

He wishes it was. He detests that thought. He doesn’t deserve it.

In Gaius’s nearly three millennia of existence, he’s been many things. He’s been a soldier, a conqueror, a _king_. He’s had more lovers than he can count, but now he wonders how many of them truly loved him. How many of them had loved him without fear, loved him truly, endearingly, so heart wrenchingly so? 

_There was one_ , Gaius reminds himself. _Ariadne. You eloped in the middle of the night. A sweet girl, but died at age seventeen. You watched as the light left her eyes. Have you been the same since?_

That was over two thousand years ago. He’s changed plenty, far too much for his liking. His mind’s been tossed around and toyed with, manipulated and rewritten _then_ given back to him. And when it was finally returned to, he’s forced to deal with the consequences of what he’s done. Forced to deal with a conscience that tears him apart.

A conscience given back to him, of course, by Amy. 

It _always_ goes back to her.

The kindness she’s shown him, the sympathy in her eyes, it haunts him almost as much as the ghosts in the walls do. 

He wishes it was love. Some dark, twisted part of him — or so he likes to believe — wishes it was love. Whatever compassion, whatever affections she’s shown him, he’ll return tenfold, if not in full, given the chance. 

For now, he’ll settle for an eternity’s atonement.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](https://libraascendant.tumblr.com)


End file.
